By  BISHOP PAUL BUPE –

IT is rather disgusting to see how the moral mercury of the Zambian people has fallen to its lowest level. This is self-evident in that the images that appeared in one of the Zambian newspapers dated February 18, 2014 were then followed by worse images of semi-nude women again published on February 21, 2014.
It is shocking and disgusting to see how the said newspaper has its journalists position their camera under women’s skirts to capture whatever they can in order to feed the minds of the Zambian people who seem to be enjoying feeding their minds on filthy pictures.
Society’s silence and indifference has allowed these young journalists to continue to lie in wait for an opportunity to photograph the nakedness of a drunk or an “insane” woman for the consumption of the Zambian mind of a child, youth or an adult. It is disgusting in the sense that such practice is inconsistent with our culture and religiosity.
Looking on the nakedness of a woman who is not your wife is a taboo.
It is shocking to see how Zambian society that used to respect women now allows a situation where by they can sit back and watch pornographic images being posted in news papers. These images of women dancing suggestively with their under pants or no under pants showing is getting worse every day.
The biggest question is that there any laws in Zambia that forbid such publishing and distribution of images that are designed to corrupt morals of people? If so why has the law enforcement wing continued to pay a blind eye to this?
When these trigger-happy journalists, bring images from night clubs publish them, without consideration that these images have the potential to corrupt people’s minds including our youths and children, then know that we have leadership that is void of morality in place.
This raises questions on the type of leadership and the type of politics that is on the ground.
In my search for the reasons why this is happening in Zambia I found myself thinking beyond the mere act of publishing and printing photos of nude women and distributing the same. I thought about the question of leadership and political morality. What values inform the lives of the leaders in Zambia?
This includes political, business, social and Church leaders in Zambia? Whose values inform our laws?  To those who hold that “You can’t legislate morality!” but “If you can’t legislate morality, what can you legislate, immorality?
The fact is that you cannot legislate anything but morality. The prevalence of loose morals raises a big question on the caliber of leadership in Zambia at all levels including the Church.
A government must be governed by ethical and moral considerations especially that there is a lack of confidence and trust in politicians and political institutions. “The perception of good personal character is desirable because it can elicit trust and support from the populace, in addition, appeal to moral principle can be a powerful lever to encourage compliance with the leader’s policies.”
It is important, therefore, that if the  representatives of the people clothe themselves in cloaks of towering morality, integrity and be of good character, they cannot condone the publishing and distribution of materials that are  offensive or disgusting by accepted standards of morality and decency.
Zambians are not outcome oriented when it comes to leadership.  the pragmatic model which focuses only on the outcome produced by a leader is not our model.
In this model the private life of a candidate has no consequence on the political career of an official.
The model purports that, as long as the politicians are able to do their job and yield the desired results, the questions of morality and character are irrelevant.
This is consistent with Machiavelli’s philosophy which freed politics from morality. Estes writes: “In Machiavellian terms, the end justifies the means, so the only factor that matters is the successful public conduct of a leader.”
Machiavelli is a medieval writer and poet who wrote a book called “the Prince” (1505). The book was written for a specific purpose and at a time when people did not keep faith.
Although there have been numerous interpretations of Machiavelli’s political philosophy by students of politics and politicians alike, it is true that Machiavelli totally and absolutely renounced the moral virtues that were held and promoted by Hebrew, Greek and Roman politicians.
Before 1513 a good ruler was one that was generous, truthful and ruled by justice. But Machiavelli destroyed medieval Christian virtues in politics and asserted that a successful ruler should be above morality. As far as Machiavelli was concerned any means of maintaining power was justified and, in fact, recommended.
He taught that a leader could use any means necessary to help remain popular and supported by the masses. He further instructed that a leader must be feared rather than loved and that rulers must be cruel.
He advised leaders to manipulate the weaknesses of the masses and taught the princes to deceive their subjects.
The most shocking idea, to a religious caste of mind, lies in Machiavelli’s instructions that it is not necessary for a Prince to have good qualities and be religious:
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and
always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you change to the opposite. (Wogaman 1993, 105-107).
There are those who have bought in this philosophy, especially the advocates of secularism in the Western world. Brendan Sweetman in his book “Why Politics need Religion” writes concerning the secularist’s worldview that, “The one key difference between traditional religion and secularism is that the latter does not accept belief in God” (2006, 79).
We are faced with extreme relativism, the view that the individual chooses his or her own values, that nobody else can say that one is wrong; nobody can impose one’s moral values on another. So one cannot consistently criticize the moral values of other people, nor can they criticize yours.
So “A” might hold that if he thinks extra marital sex is moral, then it is moral for him, and if “B” thinks it is immoral, then it is immoral for “B”. But “B” cannot impose his moral views on “A”, because everyone has the right to choose their own moral values.
This is to say that each individual is entitled to his or her own worldview and no one should criticise another person’s worldview.
This deters a part of society, using government means, from imposing their morality on the rest of society. Nevertheless, it is natural for humans to transfer their personal values to public sphere even without a religious caste of mind.
I find it to be troubling to see the church sit back and watch the media continue publishing and distributing images of pornographic nature.
Women who disrespect themselves in night clubs are not representative of our Zambian women. Although our women have disrepected their own bodies yet that does not justify society to take
pleasure in publishing and distributing the nakedness of the “insane women.”
It is worth noting that it is high moral standards that earned the Christians respect in a morally depraved Roman empire in which even the gods were immoral. Writers like Tertullian were uncompromising concerning the Christian holiness and the idolatries of the world of their time. There is a big distiction between the Christian life and the secular culture. Loose sexual morality of the Roman empire is contrasted with the Christian community in which material possession were shared except for their wives.
Given that Zambia is declared a Christian Nation twith 85% of its population having christian orientation, then it is important that leaders respect the people’s values and culture.
The call for moral leadership is not a call for perfection in morality but a call for morality that humans are capable of attaining, thus bringing dignity and progress to the nation.
At this point let me sound a word of caution that morality is not an exclusive privilege of Christians. There are non Christians who are of towering morality also.
To be a Christian does not automatically make one virtuous or morally qualified to lead.
This is a call to a return to our culture of respect. Morals must permeate to all spheres of our society. Whatever reasons these Medias have for doing what they are doing, it is wrong to publish nakedness of people even if they are insane.
Zambians are not pigs to be fed on filth. They deserve respect. Our Africanness has established boundaries.
There are certain issues that are exclusively for the bedroom and not for the sitting room where even children get involved in. We have so many youths in schools today who are struggling with the negative impact of images of nudity sent to then via cell phones and they cannot concentrate on their studies. We are working hard counselling them.
A good media must join the effort by choosing better method’s of stopping the rot. Their lives are being destroyed just like that.
For the sake of our nation and our children may the media stop publishing and distributing filthy images from night clubs. The media must understand that the means is as important are the message.
(The author is a Bishop of Redeemed Methodist Church; Mobile 096 4621995 Email: eulaben2008@gmail.com)